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Ferrari boss walks out on Sky Sports F1 interview after Lewis Hamilton question

Fred Vasseur chuckled in response to Ted Kravitz’s inquiry about Riccardo Adami’s radio message to Lewis Hamilton after the British driver secured pole position for the sprint qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix. Hamilton, driving for Ferrari, clinched his first pole of any kind with a strong performance in the Friday sprint shootout. He narrowly edged out Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri to take the top spot. After the session, once the other drivers had completed their laps, Adami, who is Hamilton’s race engineer, came on the radio to share the good news with his driver. The Italian’s radio message was a bit puzzling, as he either said “Santiago” or “San Diego,” a phrase that sparked debate among the Sky Sports F1 pundits, who couldn’t agree on what exactly was said. In any case, the term used by Adami was a code for pole position (P1), which Hamilton instantly understood. He laughed in response and asked, “Really?” signaling his amusement at the moment.

Prior to this, Fred Vasseur had provided an assessment of the sprint qualifying session. He acknowledged the improvement in performance compared to the Australian Grand Prix, but expressed caution in reading too much into the results of one session. He noted that the performance swings between races could be drastic, as evidenced by McLaren’s varying pace. One session they could be well ahead, while the next they might struggle. Vasseur emphasized that while the pole position was a positive development for both Hamilton and the team, it was still too early to draw any firm conclusions. He further mentioned that it was a positive boost for team morale and energy, especially for Hamilton, but he always focused on the areas that still needed improvement. He stated, “It’s better than last week, but difficult to read and understand from one session to the other one. Sometimes McLaren had a huge gap, sometimes not so. Let’s analyse it. We have a lot of work to do.”

Vasseur also pointed out that Hamilton’s consistency across both SQ1 and SQ3, where he was leading, was a clear indication of improvement. This consistency, he argued, was a good sign for the team moving forward. However, while Hamilton and Verstappen would both have their sights set on securing their first victories of the season from the front row of the grid, there would still be plenty of challenges. Piastri and Lando Norris, who would be starting further down the grid, were both strong contenders, especially given Norris’ impressive performance in the wet conditions in Australia, where he managed to pull out a commanding 15-second lead over Verstappen. Norris had shown that the McLaren MCL39 car had potential to be incredibly fast, and he would look to capitalize on this in the dry conditions in China, aiming to make progress from his P6 starting positi

on.